First off, if you can, please post in the thread. I'd rather not have my inbox overflowing with personal questions as it is right now. Post any questions/concerns/comments right here.

What's up guys. I haven't been on TechPB in many months. Used to be pretty active in the BST but eventually lost interest. Still been playing paintball though

Anyway, I've been spending the last few months on Bodybuilding.com under the username SamSix. I've made great progress adding size, shape, and definition to my body and I'd like to share my acquired knowledge with the TPB community so you can live healthier lives, and maybe even get some jealous looks.

This is me o September 11, 2009. At 6 feet tall I weighed 125 pounds and couldn't even fill out a medium size shirt. pathetic i know

This is August, 2012. at 6 feet, 1 inch, 190 pounds, 10% body fat wearing the same shirt as the first pic

I accomplished my physique through months of rigorous training, proper nutrition, and supplementation. My training regimen in detail, as well as basic information can be found below. I urge you to read it fully if you are truly ready to transform your body and better yourself.

-if you don't have access to a gym, PM me on what you do have, and what your goals are, and I can help craft a routine/diet based on what's available to you and what you desire.

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If you are a complete beginner/newbie to lifting.....or

If you just want some basic tips and routines, and don't want to get all technical, skip towards the bottom.

Training: Before you even begin, please, please, make sure you are fit to perform these exercises and have proper technique. Safety first.

This is what has worked for me. It might not necessarily work for you as everyone responds differently to training. Anyway, this is what my routine looks like:

Day 1: Legs

Squat 5x5

Dead lift 3x2 (super heavy)

Leg Press 3x8

Leg extensions 3x10

Leg curls 3x12

Standing calf raise 3x15

Seated calf raise 3x10

Day 2: Chest/triceps

Bench Press 5x5

Incline dumbell press 3x8

Incline dumbell fly 3x10

Cable cross overs 3xfailure

Weighted dips 3x10

Skull crushers 3x8

Tricep push downs 3x8

Day 3: Back/biceps

Weighted chin ups (palms facing away) 3x6

Overhand bent over rows 3x10

Lat pull down 3x10

Cable rows 3x8

Dumbell curls 3x8

Preacher curls 3x10

Hammer curls 2x8

Day 4: Shoulders/Traps

Military press 3x8

Dumbell side lateral raise 3x8

Lateral Cable Raise 3x10

Front raise 3x10

Rear Delt Fly 3x12

Dumbell Shrugs 3x12

Barbell Shrugs 3x8

10 minutes of ab/core work

Abs: I work abs every other day. I work them for ten to fifteen minutes focusing on weighted crunches, leg raises, and side planks for obliques.

Diet: Diet is everything. Whether you want to build muscle or burn fat. Go online and calculate your maintenance calories. If you want to get bigger, eat 400 calories above this. If you want to get leaner, eat 500 calories below this. My maintenance is 3500 calories a day. So when I'm bulking up, I eat 3900 calories a day (or close to it). When cutting down and getting ripped up, I eat 3000 calories a day. But your maintenance all depends on activity level, weight, height, age, metabolism, and body fat percentage.

TO BUILD MUSCLE YOU MUST EAT A SURPLUS OF CALORIES. YOU WILL ALSO GAIN A LITTLE BIT OF FAT. THIS FAT WILL BE TRIMMED OFF LATER WHEN DIETING AND CUTTING. YOU WILL NOT GAIN MUSCLE WHILE CUTTING, ONLY LOSE FAT.

YOU CANNOT GAIN MUSCLE AND LOSE FAT AT THE SAME TIME

notice: you do not need to follow this exact diet. These are foods that are healthy that I enjoy eating pretty much every day. As long as you have a healthy diet, cut out junk food, soda, candy, fast food, etc, you will see greater gains when lifting.

My diet is moderate carb, high protein year round. I have a cheat day once a week where you can eat basically anything besides candy, junk food, fast food, and soda. I cycle between bulking and cutting. This is my bulking diet. You will put on a lot of muscle mass and a little fat if you do this. This is to get big, not ripped. If you want to get ripped, research carb cycling.

total calories: 3700-3900 (adjust diet according to height and weight)

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CUTTING DIET

I do a very low carb, high protein diet when cutting. This is what I prefer. Either choose to cut out carbs or fat from your diet to reduce your overall calorie intake. My training routine stays the same, just lower the weight and add more reps. I do zero cardio but you can add swimming, biking, running, whatever, if you prefer.

Supplements: I buy mine at the Vitamin Shoppe. Supplements are NOT necessary. They are beneficial though. If I had to pick only one supplement to take, it would definitely be Protein. You can't grow without it.

THE BASICS: If you are beginning/haven't really lifted before, you need to do something called Starting Strength for 3-4 months to actually develop a decent muscle base. Alternate between these two routines with 2 days rest in between. Throw in pull ups to work your biceps and lats.

These basic lifts will work all of your muscles and add some decent size. Now onto some basic guidelines:

Lifting: Lift heavy for 3 weeks, light for 1 week. Stay in the 6-8 rep range for 3 weeks with pretty heavy weight, and then alternate to lighter sets of 12-15 reps for one week. This will keep your body guessing and keep your results from slowing too much. You have to work ALL of your muscles. Don't get into this with the mentality of "i want bigger arms" or "i want to bench press more". You need to develop your whole body, not just one or two muscle groups.

Nutrition: Just eat healthy. It's really not that hard. Stop going to McDonald's three times a week, get all the soda out of your fridge, and stop snacking on candy, chips, and ice cream. You're probably thinking, "but those are my major food groups!". Yes, it's hard to give up the junk, but once you do you'll never want to go back. Don't starve yourself at all though. Eat like a champ! You need to eat to grow, simple as that, just eat the right foods.

Supplementation: You don't need supplements. Period. They are beneficial, but not completely necessary. The only supplements you should invest in if you can afford them and are interested are Protein, a Multi Vitamin, and Creatine. Optimum Nutrition sells all of these products for a decent price.

ROIDS lol. No jking but nice layout you have here. A lot of people will benefit from this.

PS you should add your cutting diet/workout and mention which you should do first.

nice post

i've always bee told i have a big head lol. that's part of the reason i wanted to make my body proportional haha. i've never taken anything illegal though. still on the fence if i'll ever do a roid cycle but i know that if i did it now i'd really mess up my hormone and growth balance. i will add on a cutting guide, thanks.

whether you should cut or bulk first is up to the individual. if you're unhappy with the amount of body fat you have, then cut. if you want to simply get huge, bulk up!

Stay away from the roid cycle, your making progress faster than most with what your doing now. Roids have more downsides than they do upsides, I have a friend that regrets taking them. Keep up the good work. Nice write up too.

Stay away from the roid cycle, your making progress faster than most with what your doing now. Roids have more downsides than they do upsides, I have a friend that regrets taking them. Keep up the good work. Nice write up too.

i do eventually want to get into fitness modelling or something like that. but i don't know where my natural physique will take me. maybe i won't need a boost after all. i have many more years of growing and developing to do before i make that decision

You CAN gain muscle, and lose body fat at the same time, but typically only in the "newbie gains" weeks when you first start. About the first 6 weeks, max. In those first weeks, you will burn fat and still put on muscle. Fairly rapidly, if you hit it hard. But then you will level off, and wont be able to anymore.

Anyway, take it from someone that has been there, and cut first, and bulk later, unless you have a VERY strong will. The problem is that a lot of people like the idea of bulking, because you dont need to count your macros as closely, and it is easy to get into. That makes it very appealing to people looking at this for the short term. I made this mistake. I bulked for a few months, decided I was tired of hitting the gym all the time, and dumped it. The problem? I was still used to eating a lot. I ended up putting on an additional 7% body fat in the first month after I stopped lifting, even though I scaled down my eating.

So, if you start out bulking, your body will want that amount of food if you give up on your routine. Lets face it, most people are the type that jump in, decide they dont like it, and get out. Starting out with macro counting and calorie budgeting will give you good results, even without working out, especially if you are looking to lose weight. You wont be at any sort of disadvantage if you give up a cut. Giving up during a bulk cycle is bad. Real bad.

You CAN gain muscle, and lose body fat at the same time, but typically only in the "newbie gains" weeks when you first start. About the first 6 weeks, max. In those first weeks, you will burn fat and still put on muscle. Fairly rapidly, if you hit it hard. But then you will level off, and wont be able to anymore.

true. i decided not to mention it so i could spare other people my own mistake. i tried desperately for a couple additional months to stay in this recomp mode where i was losing fat and gaining muscle but it just wasnt happening. finally decided to do a real bulk. kept my food healthy and clean, and have stayed pretty lean.

regarding bulking vs cutting, it really depends on the individuals composition when starting out. if they are skinny as hell with low body fat, they should bulk up like theres no tomorrow. but if they are over weight or a "skinny fat" they should cut first.

i didn't mean to imply that you should always bulk first by the order in which i put my diets

You obviously wont have a true cut if you are skinny, but you can do a no/little excess "bulk." As in, rather than shooting high, you take in just what you need, or maybe a bit more. You wont gain muscle quite as fast, but you wont put on the fat either. I think that starting out with a bulk cycle is setting yourself up for disaster if you dont end up sticking it out for the long haul. While going with a cut, or balance, leaves you with no real problem if you drop the workout component. More people can manage to stick well to a diet than a workout routine. Square away a good diet, and come in slow.

When you are bulking on 3500 calories a day, and then you drop your workout component, the hunger of suddenly trying to eat only 2200-2500 calories is CRAZY. It is physical pain, and VERY difficult to get around. And 3500 calories was not even that much of a bulk. Plenty of guys my size (at that time) were putting down closer to 4500-5000 calories a day. I can only imagine if they suddenly tried to go back to maintenance...

it's a good sound program, as far as the can a person put on muscle and loose fat at the same time its almost better to tell people especially in the beginning you cannot do this because the set of circumstances where you can is very limited and often people can get conned out of money by some 'magic' routine supplement or drug that generally centers around unrealistic gains in muscle and loss in body fat in a short time. Have people gained muscle and lost fat in scientific studies were they were also drug tested for Steriods ya they have but its very hard thing to do and frankly often involves the genetically gifted on virtually perfect diets working very very hard.

another thing... eat your veggies and a lot of them. when you take in 3000+ calories a day you need fiber to pass it all through or you'll get stopped up. my first semester of college, with the buffet lines and free gym, i packed on 18 pounds of muscle and got ripped in a little over a month eating as much pb&j sandwiches as i could, getting a plate FULL of veggies at the buffet with a baked potato, then getting a plate full of whatever their main course was, then drinking a protein shake/milk before i went to bed

I don't really have much experience with body building, but I'm thinking of getting into it, I'm kind of a light weight at the moment.

somewhere in the range of 230. i train for size/hypertrophy, not strength. im not a power lifter by any means. only lift that i max out on consistently is dead lifts. that's currently approaching 400 pounds

another thing... eat your veggies and a lot of them. when you take in 3000+ calories a day you need fiber to pass it all through or you'll get stopped up. my first semester of college, with the buffet lines and free gym, i packed on 18 pounds of muscle and got ripped in a little over a month eating as much pb&j sandwiches as i could, getting a plate FULL of veggies at the buffet with a baked potato, then getting a plate full of whatever their main course was, then drinking a protein shake/milk before i went to bed

no doubt. the only time you should be restricting vegetable and fruit intake is when you are cutting or dieting down. you should avoid fruit to some extent in that instance because of the sugar/fructose content. you can never have enough fiber though. celery, lettuce, and brocolli are all great

I don't really have much experience with body building, but I'm thinking of getting into it, I'm kind of a light weight at the moment.

somewhere in the range of 230. i train for size/hypertrophy, not strength. im not a power lifter by any means. only lift that i max out on consistently is dead lifts. that's currently approaching 400 pounds

Ok, I was just trying to gauge where I'm at, thanks, looks like I'm going to have to do more then 2 or 3 pushups...

"I only drink the blood of my enemies! oh, and occasionally one of those strawberry Slurpee thingies"

Hey dude! Good write up and amazing inspiration. I have a question though, I'm 5'8" 210 and I started eating healthier and jogging 2 miles everyday. But I decided to up the ante so I started using Nike training center because I got no access to the gym nor exercise equipment. do you recommend doing the circuit training everyday or every other day? And should I buy dumbells or resistant cord? And lastly should I bring my weight to normal before I start bulking up on muscles?

Hey dude! Good write up and amazing inspiration. I have a question though, I'm 5'8" 210 and I started eating healthier and jogging 2 miles everyday. But I decided to up the ante so I started using Nike training center because I got no access to the gym nor exercise equipment. do you recommend doing the circuit training everyday or every other day? And should I buy dumbells or resistant cord? And lastly should I bring my weight to normal before I start bulking up on muscles?

it all depends on what you can handle. if you can handle doing circuit training every day, do it. if not, rest more. buy dumbells, not bands. and yes you should get your weight in a healthy range before trying to put on lean mass